1. Weekend Warriors

I still remember when he showed me the Wide, and changed everything.

I stood on the edge of the gorge, looking down from the viewing platform, hands clenched to the wooden barrier so hard they hurt. I watched as the canyon walls fled from me and the floor plummeted. The chasm doubled, tripled in size before my eyes, continuing to expand though I screamed at it to stop. Eventually the bottom was lost to darkness, and I could only speculate numbly at how far down it went. And through the horror and the shock, I had to fight against a sudden appalling urge to climb the barrier and drop into the black.

After a while I felt George's hand on my shoulder. 'They only find about half of the people that jump from here,' he said. 'Those that jump in the Narrow. Others . . . those few who can't handle the shock of it opening up, we never see them again.'

I pried my hands from the barrier, turned to face him. He smiled reassuringly. 'It's why we never let anyone come up here alone.'

He went on, to talk about triggers, about the Wide and the Narrow. He told me of the places I could go and the wonders I could see, but I remember little of what he said now. My mind was still chasing the bottom of the chasm, and all I could think was that this was more excitement than I had hoped for.

#

I had been feeling pretty listless for a while. My girlfriend, Danni, had recently broken up with me, citing ennui and mild depression. Her repeated use of the words 'bland' and 'beige' and 'carpet slippers' during her half-hour leaving speech had led me to seriously examine my life. The annoying thing was that I could not even be angry with her; she was right about most things, although I still disapprove of her use of the label 'suffocatingly dull'.

It is true that my life had settled into a bit of a rut. Some of it was even of my own making, although I maintain I was a victim of circumstance as far as my work and social life were concerned. At work I was trapped in a job where the promotion could only come about if I bumped off one of my more senior colleagues or convinced them to retire some fifteen years early. Socially, I was chained to a village full of retirees, in a small cottage I had inherited when my parents had passed on.

True, I could have changed jobs, or moved house, but I was comfortable.

#

Kelly had put me in touch with George. She worked with me, and had been present the day of my little episode. She had caught up with me as I walked away from the office, confused, hands shaking. I hadn't really known where I was going, or what had happened.

We talked it out in a coffee shop at the bottom of the hill. It was early morning and we were the only customers, so we had our privacy. I told her about Danni, about my detachment to the break up and my general dissatisfaction. Kelly suggested I get in touch with her brother; he and his friends were always doing crazy things, motorcycle road trips, handgliding weekends, paintballing, and so on.

'It might be just the thing you need,' she said. 'Shake your life up a little.'

I didn't think it could hurt. I paid for our coffees and we returned to work.

Everyone had resumed work when we got back. The speculation was over, and the routine had begun again in earnest. Someone swore at their computer, someone's novelty ringtone went off and someone else made the usual joke about it. I went in to see the boss, see if I still had a job.

Edward Harris was sat behind his desk, a mountain of a man sloping down on all sides from his light brown toupee. He seldom left his office, preferring to watch his employees through his glass walls rather than walk amongst them. In here he was a genial host, and I knew that even if I was fired there was a chance I could be in there all morning keeping him company.

I was relieved to learn that he knew nothing of the morning's incident, and appalled by the way he just dismissed it as just another one-of-those-things. 'I laid hands on one of my colleagues, Ted!' but he would have none of it. I might have grabbed him as well, had I not caught Kelly looking at me. Her smile said she would make my life hell if I walked out of there unemployed.

It took me forty five minutes to get away from Harris's room. I stopped at Kelly's desk, and she looked up at me with one eyebrow raised. 'This whole place has gone fucking crazy,' I said.

She laughed and passed me a post-it note. It had her brother's name and a mobile number written on it. 'Give him a call,' she said.

#

George and his friends were paintballing that weekend, and he invited me to join them. They arranged to pick me up at the bus stop in the centre of my village. He drove an old Benz Sprinter, clean and well maintained. Sprayed on the side was a strange decal almost three feet across. It looked like the better graffiti you sometimes see in town centres. Blue and green and white, I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a globe or a clock or both at once.

'What is that on the side?' I asked him as he wound his window down.

He smiled briefly, said only, 'Jump in the back.'

The back of the van smelt of stale coffee and the floor was a dusty, stained plywood. Three more men sat on the floor, and I found myself a space between them and their daybags. I hadn't brought anything with me -- just the rough stuff I had been instructed - and I wondered if I had forgotten something, and whether the item would be something essential or just embarrassing.

No one spoke as we set off. My fellow passengers stared out of the front window as if trying to memorise the journey. The front passenger leaned round in his seat and smiled at me. 'Don't worry about them,' he said. 'They're always a bit quiet before battle.' Then he turned to face the front again and we rode in silence.

The parking area for the paintball was little more than a lay-by that branched off into two tracks into the woods. I was introduced to the people from the van, and the people from other cars as and when they arrived. The petite girl with the goth make-up; the overweight Asian man who moved like a ballerino. The brace of skate kids, the bikers, and the bickering elderly gents. There was something disparate about the group. I should have felt at home amidst them, the dispirited and newly single sales-manager, but I couldn't determine what it was that bound them together. It frustrated me.

I'd been here before, near a decade ago, and recognised the faded sign that pointed down the left hand track to Conquest Paintball. I was surprised then when we took the right hand fork. We went deep into the woods, deeper than I expected, and I was surprised that we hadn't driven down here instead of hiking. I fell in beside a guy who walked with his focus intent on his black boots. 'Did they move the paintball then?'

He looked up at me, startled at being spoken too. He was one of the few people who hadn't brought along their own kit, like me. 'We have our own set-up out here,' he said. He stopped walking to answer me, and I was forced to stop too. 'The regular paintball place wasn't big enough.'

I looked at the people in front, behind, flowing past us. There couldn't have been more than twenty heads. 'Really?'

'There's usually more of us,' he said. He looked anxious to be moving again. 'Days like today, though, only the core come along.' He started walking once more, and I kept quiet.

#

I discovered a new talent for being a target that day. I performed badly, and soon had a testament of bruises to this. My companions slowly warmed to me -- some more than others -- although I suspect that this was more for my value as a comedic foil than for any sense of comradeship. That said, I was congratulated for a couple of kills in the second or third game, and thereafter I found myself striving for their approval.

By the time of the last game, the setting sun was shading the paint-splattered woods in orange, the air had taken on a chill that numbed extremities, and my body was battered and stiff. I had killed a grand total of three of my competitors, but had been killed in eight of the nine games we had played. Despite my inadvertant sabotage, my team led the opposition team six-three.

This dominance was mainly due to the overweight Asain man; he was a wraith in the woods, who did things with the clumsy paintball guns that shouldn't have been possible. He was a paintslinger of extraordinary skill. They called him Regent.

It was Regent that I found myself next to as we waited for the final game. He gave me a wry grin. 'Pretty impressive, isn't it?'

'I'm going to say intimidating,' I replied.

The wooden structure in front of us was vast, a sprawling warfare-decorated pyramid in the trees. It was made of salvaged wood, planks and boards, and seemed to be held up only by force of will, a house of cards forever on the brink of collapse. There were doors and ramps and rope bridges and windows. It reached a peak in the centre, some four or five stories high, with a room open on all sides. A multi-coloured bell hung from the ceiling. The winners of the game, George had told us, were the first team to ring that bell.

'We normally play most of our games here,' Regent was saying. I could tell, the wood was layered in a dozen different colours of paint, a chaos of hues that hurt the eyes. 'But we don't like to let the new kids see it.'

I didn't register that at the time; I was too worried. Now I wonder at my special treatment, and what had enticed it. I certainly hadn't excelled that day.

George, stood off to one side of the structure, sounded a klaxon, and we ran for the various openings and access-ways on our side of it.

Inside it was a maze of corridors, partitioned rooms, and sloping floors. I ran, dodging, and managed to avoid the first dozen or so shots that were sent after me on the first floor. A couple of shots vibrated the wood near me on the second floor, flecking my combats with paint, but nothing touched. On the successive levels I was alone. I could hear the laughter and screams of the others below me, and the structure shook with their footfalls.

The penultimate floor consisted of a single large room, with a broken partition around the perimeter providing cover. Stairs and ramps joined the floor from below in each corner. In the centre of the room, a single, rudimentary ladder rose to the bell room.

As I crossed to the ladder, a paint ball exploded across the front of my visor, blinding me, halting me. I cursed and wiped the orange paint from my vision. I heard Regent apologising. I saw him climb into view from the ramp to my right.

'Wipe that off before anyone gets here,' he said, and I did as I was told. 'How did you get up here so damned fast?'

'Kept my head--'

I stopped as a paintball bounced off the floor to my feet. Another hit the ladder, setting it swinging. Regent and I ducked behind the partition; Regent sending a salvo of shots back at our attacker, me dropping my gun and emitting an emasculating yelp.

'Are you losing it, Regent?' the enemy shouted. Regent's dark eyes stared at me from inside his visor. It was a stand-off. None of us could approach the ladder without getting shot. We did however, have the advantage of numbers.

'Keep yourself behind me,' I whispered.

I jumped out from behind my partition, and ran towards our assailant. His first three shots went wide, and I plucked my gun off the floor. I put myself between him and the ladder. A shot hit me in the chest, stung like a bastard. I fired back at him, not even trying to take aim. Kept walking towards him, reducing his line of sight on the ladder. He shot at me again, shouted, 'You're dead, Goddard.' His pellet hit me on the leg.

'It's only a flesh wound,' I shouted, firing back.

We exchanged shots for a few moments, his having more success as I was lacking cover. Then suddenly he cursed and shot towards the ceiling at the top of the ladder. Seconds later the bell pealed, as Regent made the top.

My adversary stood up from behind the partition, his weapon raised. There was an uncomfortable second when I thought he was going to shoot me again for good measure, but then he lowered his gun and shook his head. His voice came muffled through his head scarf: 'Flesh wound.'

We waited for Regent to get tired of ringing the bell, and then walked out of the castle together. I tried not to limp.

#

George invited me to come paintballing again, was quite encouraging about it. I was almost tempted. We went out for drinks that evening, and whilst I felt closer to some of them, the mystery of their comradeship still puzzled me.

I never made that call. By the following morning, my actions were defined by stiffness and my every movement was a chore. I had subconciously decided that the pain wasn't worth the benefits. Kelly chided me for it for a little while, but then accepted what I had accepted some time ago: Danni had been right all along.

About four weeks later, on a Sunday, I bumped into George at the frozen food section of the local supermarket. He looked at me with eyebrows raised. 'I was expecting a call from you,' he said.

I apologised. 'I've been busy.'

His gaze told me that he knew I lied. 'What are you up to this afternoon?' he said. 'There's something I want to show you.'

We took his van back to the woods. Parked up and stood on the road. We were at the lay-by we had parked in prior to the paintballing. It was exactly as I remembered it -- the faded sign, the tyre tracks in the mud -- but for one small detail: only one track led off from the lay-by. The right hand fork had gone.

'I didn't realise they had another entrance,' I said weakly, trying to rationalise what my brain was insisting could not be true.

'They don't,' he said gently. 'Follow that track and ask anyone down there, they'll all swear blind that only one track leaves this lay-by.'

'What's going on?'

He started back to the car. 'Come on,' he said. 'I'll explain as I drive.'

#

We climbed the hill to the viewing platform that overlooked the gorge. It was hard going; the path has never been paved, and the grass was slick with the previous day's rain.

On the way there George had started to explain things to me. 'There's a lot more to the world than you know,' he said. 'Most people can only see the world as you see it now; what we call the Narrow. A select few of us can, if triggered, see everything; the secret pathways, the hidden areas. The paintballing and the castle are in such an area. Do you know there are whole countries hidden away?'

I admitted that I didn't.

'You can be one of the few. You're only partially triggered so far; you can see the Wide if someone shows you, but otherwise you'll only get hints. I can open you up to the rest. I can make you see it all.'

I accepted his offer, even though I didn't know what I was getting into at the time. I don't regret it.

We reached the top of the hill, stopped on the gentler incline that lead towards the viewing platform. 'This is your last chance to turn back,' George said. 'Stay away from here, and a few places like this, and you'll stay in the Narrow.'

I shook my head. George continued. 'When you're ready then, look down.'

I never felt anything change inside me, nothing physical. I simply climbed onto the platform and looked down. The world opened up and it was terrifying and beautiful.

Commentary

What is House of Cards: The Wide?

House of Cards is an ongoing fantasy series about a man who discovers a wider world. It is published on or around the first of every month at infinitewhite.net.

What is the idea behind House of Cards: The Wide?

House of Cards (or simply HoC) is the product of a couple of ideas that have floated around in my head for a while now, but have recently collided.

Some years ago, one of my fellow writers made an off-hand comment about using tarot cards to generate plot ideas. I thought this was quite a neat idea, but I never really got around to developing it beyond buying a deck. I got distracted whilst researching the history of tarot cards, which led me to research something else, which led to something else, and so on. The comment got filed away in the back of my brain, and forgotten about.

More recently, I have thought about writing a series of inter-connected short stories. I have always been fascinated by episodic fiction, be it through the medium of short stories, comic books, or even television shows. I wanted to try my hand, and so when my over-riding plot idea came to me, I thought about how I could develop this into a workable series.

I realised that I could use the cards idea. Not just for the generation of plot ideas, but for everything. I decided not to use tarot cards for this project, and instead bought myself a simple deck of playing cards. Each story, barring the first, would be generated by drawing a number of cards from the deck. Each card has a plot mechanism and a character and a place (as well as a number of other things) assigned to it. The outcome of each draw would decide what my story for that month would be.

I don't know how well this is going to work out. I'd like to think that I'm going to stumble on something great here, but you never can tell. If you've read this far, I ask that you consider this a writing exercise and nothing more. I hope that you enjoy what you read here, and I welcome any feedback you might offer.

Draw

No draw was made for this story.

Revisions

No revisions have been made to this story.

#